Key visuals are available for upcoming shoujo manga turned anime series, “Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun” – and the characters appear a mix of “average” and “unimpressive”, and perhaps even “inconsistent”.
First scrolling through the character profiles below, the character are unlikely to appeal to most of us – although it would not be appropriate to merely deem them as lacking as they do not fit one’s taste, rather, it is quite valid to pick at them for visible aspects of deficiency. Yet before the ridicule begins, there’s actually a surprising few areas in which one must commend the illustrations – or rather, one of them.
Looking at the heroine, her head will immediately be a distinctive feature that catches the eye – specifically as the shape is quite unique compared to most anime character designs, reason being that it is not abstract. Notice how her eyes are placed half-way down her head – this is realistically accurate, and applies to every healthy human of reality despite most individuals being clueless, or without a reason to even bother contemplating or questioning the matter.
Proper anatomy is always praiseworthy, as is the fact that her seifuku is quite stylishly novel as well – yet unfortunately, as aforementioned, the artwork is not all grand. It’s incomprehensible why an animation studio must either jump one way or the other in portraying females – if a series targets a male audience, the heroines have enormous breasts, and it appears the situation is reversed when the targeted crowd is females themselves. Neither of the two present females have any depth around their chest whatsoever.
The girls seen here don’t, and shouldn’t, have balloons escaping their upper bodies – yet why must the breasts be eradicated entirely? This is an instance of “positive discrimination” – which for those unfamiliar with the term, isn’t very positive at all. With the heroine’s head being astoundingly spot-on to actuality, the chest should have also been suitably illustrated. The morals behind this are no different than giving female characters oversized oppai à la Senjou no Horizon – and it simply diminishes the illustration as a whole.
Now another issue to note, the second female found in the character profiles, below our heroine, is plain ridiculous. There’s no reason as to why a character should have eyes and a mouth gargantuan, with excess highlights on the pupils, in comparison to the others – this style is actually the standard in shoujo manga, yet it’s not even slightly aesthetically pleasing, nor true to any established technique of sketch.
Lastly, the characters appear flat in general – there’s no notable artistic traits to appreciate beyond the heroine’s head, and aside from the forced shoujo characteristics, they look horribly generic and just like any other expendable anime highschoolers.
